Samsung’s Galaxy A7 Leaked Specs Suggests November Launch

It has a simple yet elegant design that is reminiscent of the Galaxy S5’s but greatly improves upon it with a polished aluminium side, smooth edges and ultra thin profile.Apple CEO Tim Cook stands in front of a screen displaying the IPhone 6 during a presentation at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California October 16, 2014.

Physically, the Alpha is smaller than Samsung’s top end S5 and even the new Galaxy Note 4, measuring a very slim 6.7mm thickness and weighing a featherweight 115g that will hardly weigh your pocket down. Every element — from the buttons to the speaker holes — have been neatly manufactured and given due consideration, lending it a professional and premium touch. The Alpha carries over several of the S5’s features including the fingerprint reader that is built-into the home button, and the heart rate sensor that is located next to the rear camera. This means you are relegated to the onboard 32GB of memory, which unfortunately means that you probably won’t be able to store as much content and as many apps as you might like. South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, SK Telecom Co., declined to comment on specific figures but confirmed that the first and second batch of presale orders for the new iPhones have been fully booked.

We were a little disappointed that the Alpha’s 4.7in Super Amoled display was not full HD resolution, which is a shame considering the Alpha’s near premium price tag. Though not as pretty as we would have liked, the 1,280 x 720 resolution is still not a bad looking display as it is very bright, enough to be seen in daylight. Samsung’s health monitoring app works as it should and the step counter did encourage us to take more steps in a day in addition to keeping track of our performance during a run. In the second quarter, Apple’s handset market share in Korea stood at 6%, ranking fourth after Samsung’s 63%, LG Electronics Inc.’s 22% and Pantech Co.’s 7%, according to Counterpoint Research. “But with Apple piggybacking on Samsung’s large-screen strategy, there are concerns that Samsung will lose its only advantage, which has been its large screen sizes,” said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst with IBK Securities in Seoul.

While S Health is not as accurate as a dedicated running app like RunKeeper, it is good enough if you are a casual user who wants to keep track of your steps and calories burnt per day. We, however, disliked the fact that Samsung still preloads its own browser, calendar, app store and e-mail client apps that mirror Google’s, thus creating unnecessary clutter. The 12-megapixel camera of the Alpha may not sound as impressive as the S5’s 16- megapixel camera but in the world of smartphone cameras, more megapixels don’t necessarily mean better photos. You can also snap a decent picture in low light situations, though you can expect slower autofocus speeds and noisier pictures as the built-in flash unfortunately does not improve image quality by much.

On the bright side, the Alpha does carry over the S5’s brilliant HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode that nicely brings out details that are otherwise lost in the shadows or blown out by bright light.